Turned Tides
by S'revan
Summary: Harry Potter, a Mary Sue, and a mentor. Some things just aren't salvageable.


Turned Tides  
  
A sort-of continuation of and inspired by M. Hikaru's "A Long Day" (story id 1446653) – which you should really go read before this one if it's to make as much sense as I hope it does. Um. Anyway.  
  
Disclaimer: Ain't mine, ain't mine.  
  
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Harry was sighing in frustration as his friends – once again OOCed – fawned over yet another Mary Sue. The long day had turned into a long week and was looking like it was going to be a long month.  
  
Someone sat down on the armrest of his chair. "Hey."  
  
"Oh... Hey. Do I know you?"  
  
She grinned. "Nope. I just came to apologize for my little sister and clean up after her." She jerked her thumb at the Mary Sue.  
  
"Couldn't you just have prevented her or something?"  
  
"Nope, this is her test."  
  
"Test?"  
  
"Uh huh." She shifted a bit to get more comfortable, and leaned back. "Let her write this thing, keep her away from it – make her actually read other's – for a while, and see if she tries to do the same thing again. If she can't actually grow into proper writing, then it's just 'bloop, delete'."  
  
"That's all very well for you guys, but what about us?"  
  
"I'm really very sorry about it, of course, but I did the same thing myself."  
  
"Uh huh." He crossed his arms and glared at her.  
  
"And then I realized what an idiot I'd been and went back and apologized, and they seemed fine. Since she showed up—"this time a head jerk at the Mary Sue— "this kind of counts as an AU anyway, so the real timeline hasn't been affected."  
  
"So this whole thing is just some sort of spin-off, you're saying. That's cold."  
  
"Hey, blame her," she said, somehow pointing accurately at the author. "She's the one who's really writing this anyway."  
  
The author grinned, waved, and continued writing.  
  
There was a pause.  
  
Suddenly the sister jumped up and yelled, "Don't you dare!"  
  
Everything abruptly became sill and colorless, excepting the Mary Sue, the sister, and, surprisingly, Harry.  
  
"What?" whined Mary Sue.  
  
"You've already said one thing, don't contradict yourself."  
  
"But—"  
  
"[insert name here]..." the sister growled.  
  
Harry groaned to himself. Great, a Mary Sue named after herself.  
  
"Hey!" Mary Sue said sharply, with the air of one trying to change the subject. "Why's he not frozen?"  
  
"Because I remain aware of my characters at all times and keep infusing them with energy, even if it's inconvenient, or I don't need them at the moment. Besides, we were having a nice enough conversation before you tried that."  
  
"What does it matter? It's not real, anyway!"  
  
"Wrong," the sister said dangerously. "Here, now, hell yes it's real."  
  
"No it's not!" Mary Sue was building to a tantrum, and the power was starting to destroy the everything-else.  
  
"Calm yourself, or I'll replace the computer our of your allowance."  
  
Harry was feeling rather grey himself. He didn't want this close a look at the fandom world, dammit! He didn't want any look – if only the Mary Sues would leave him alone, he could like girls again.  
  
"Remember what I said," sister said, flicking him a bit of energy so he'd feel better, "keep the characters real, set up your character, create a plot, and stick to it. Don't go changing things randomly just because you feel like it or because it's 'too hard'."  
  
"It is too hard! How am I supposed to—"  
  
"You should have considered that before you made your plot."  
  
"Whatever!" Mary Sue threw her hands in the air with a pout. "I don't want to do it any more."  
  
"Oh really?" sister purred – since it was a terrible story to begin with, surely she could get away with odd verbs that she couldn't actually accomplish – "That's good."  
  
Mary Sue disappeared.  
  
"Sorry about that," the remaining female said, turning back to him. Everything remained as lifeless as before. "Bye, probably won't see you again, I'll fix things in just a bit, okay?"  
  
Then she was gone too, and he was left with the ashes of his life.  
  
But not for long.  
  
~ bloop, delete ~ 


End file.
